The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the arbitrary arrest and torture of seven Papuans which took place on 15 February 2013. The victims were driving home in two cars when the police stopped them as they were looking for two pro-independence activists. The victims were later brought to the police station where they were further questioned on the whereabouts of the activists. They were severely beaten, kicked and electrocuted before being five of them were released without charge the next day. However, as at the time of writing two of the victims remain in police custody.

CASE NARRATIVE:

According to interviews and fact gathering conducted by local activists, including Yasons Sambom, on 15 February 2013 at 9am, a silver painted car stopped Daniel Gobay, Arsel Kobak and Eneko Pahabol who were driving on their way home from Depapre to Doprena. Five police officers, one of whom was identified as Iptu Beduh Rahman, got out of the silver-painted car and pointed their weapons at Daniel, Arsel and Eneko. The police then ordered the three men to crawl on their stomachs to Depapre Sub-District Police Station which is approximately 30 metres away from the place where they were stopped. (Picture 1: Eneko Pahabol, source: local activist).

An hour after they arrived at Depapre Sub-District Police Station, Daniel, Arsel and Eneko were taken to Jayapura District Police Station. The police started questioning three of them on the whereabouts of Terianus Satto and Sebby Sambom, two pro-independence activists whom Daniel, Arsel and Eneko do not have any relationship with. Eneko Pahabol told the local activists that he was repeatedly kicked in his face by officers who were wearing police boots. The officers kicked him both in his left and right knees which caused them to bleed. Eneko and his friends were also beaten with a rattan stick as well as being electrocuted on their legs. The police officers pressed the barrels of their guns to their heads, forced them into their mouths and ears. Arsel Kobak told the AHRC that he was asked to take his clothes off and kicked on his head, face and back by the police officers. As a result, his mouth and nose were bleeding, his forehead was wounded and he is now experiencing hearing difficulties.

On the same day at around 10am, the police separately stopped another car which was carrying Yosafat Satto, Salim Yaru, Matan Klembiap and Obed Bahabol. As with Daniel, Arsel and Eneko, they were also stopped by police officers in a silver-painted car in Depapre on their way home. The police officers were wearing civilian clothes and carrying Pindad SS-1 assault rifles which they pointed at Yosafat and his friends. They firstly took Yosafat, Salim, Matan and Obed to Depapre Police Station but later moved them to Jayapura District Police Station. As they arrived at Jayapura District Police Station, Yosafat and his friends were ordered to take their clothes off before the police officers started beating and electrocuting them. The officers also pressed their guns to the heads of Yosafat, Salim, Matan and Obed and asked whether they know anything about the whereabouts of Terianus Satto and Sebby Sambom. None of them know Terianus and Sebby Sambom so Yosafat as well as his three other friends told the police that they do not know anything, an answer that made the officers tortured them even more severely. The officers kicked, beat them with rattan sticks on their backs until they were bleeding, as well as electrocuted them in the face. (Picture 2: Yosafat Satto, source: local activist)

Obed Bahabol told the local activists that they later were interrogated separately and he was the first person to be questioned by a police officer. The police officer jammed the barrel of his gun to his mouth so forcefully that his tooth was broken. The officer also repeatedly beat Obed on his forehead that it was bleeding because Obed told the police that he had no idea on the whereabouts of Sebby Sambom. (Picture 3: Obed Bahabol, source: local activist).

On the next day on 16 February 2013, five of the seven arrested persons were released without charge. As the time of writing, Daniel Gobay and Matan Klembiap are still detained in the police custody, allegedly for possessing bladed articles. However, the charge and their reason of detention are still subject to clarification. Neither Daniel nor Matan has any legal representation as of the time of writing.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

In his report in 2008, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment highlighted that torture is practised widely across Indonesia, including Papua. In 2010, for instance, the AHRC released a video online which depicts military officers brutally torturing an indigenous Papua. Last year, the AHRC also issued an urgent appeal on the torture of 42 prisoners and detainees by prison authorities at Abepura Correctional Facility.

Despite the abuse took place, little have been done by the Indonesian authorities to make sure the perpetrators are punished proportionately to provide justice for the victims. Military officers who were responsible torturing a Papuan on the video in 2010 were sentenced only to 9-12 months imprisonment while the allegation on torture at Abepura Correctional Facility has never been investigated by the police.

This is the 105th in a series of monthly reports that focus on developments affecting Papuans. This series is produced by the non-profit West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) drawing on media accounts, other NGO assessments, and analysis and reporting from sources within West Papua. This report is co-published with the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN). Back issues are posted online at http://www.etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm Questions regarding this report can be addressed to Edmund McWilliams at edmcw@msn.com. If you wish to receive the report directly via e-mail, send a note to etan@etan.org. For additional news on West Papua see the reg.westpapua listserv archive or on Twitter.

WPAT Note: With the October 2012 edition, West Papua Report changed format: The Report now leads with “Perspective,” an opinion piece; followed by “Update,” a summary of some developments during the covered period; and then “Chronicle” which lists of statements, new resources, appeals and action alerts related to West Papua. Anyone interested in contributing a “Perspective” or responding to one should write to edmcw@msn.com. The opinions expressed in Perspectives are the author’s and not necessarily those of WPAT or ETAN.

This edition’s PERSPECTIVE discusses Indonesian presidential aspirant Lt. General (ret) Prabowo dark role in West Papua’s past. In the UPDATE section, we review the Indonesian security forces’ expanding campaign of violence targeting self-determination advocates associated with the West Papua National Committee (KNPB). We also summarize the implications for human rights of the proposed new “anti-terrorism” law and describe the continuing destruction of pristine forests throughout the Indonesian archipelago. In CHRONICLE: a new Asian Human Rights Commission “alert” about police violence in West Papua, a report by the Alliance of Independent Journalists regarding the rise of threats and violence against journalists, and the Australia West Papua Association Sydney’s review of human rights developments in West Papua. This edition also highlights a critique of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate project (MIFEE) by Indigenous Peoples Organization of Bian Enim.

“PERSPECTIVE”>PERSPECTIVE

Prabowo and Papua
by Edmund McWilliamsWPAT’s Edmund McWilliams is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer who served as the Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. 1996-1999. He worked closely with sources cited in the following account.

Robert Gelbard, former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, described Prabowo as “somebody who is perhaps the greatest violator of human rights in contemporary times among the Indonesian military. His deeds in the late 90s before democracy took hold, were shocking, even by TNI standards.”

Prabowo’s rapid rise to power was based on nepotism. He married the dictator Suharto’s youngest daughter, Titiek Suharto. Prabowo’s father, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, was a cabinet minister under both President Sukarno and Suharto. Although, he financed an armed rebellion against President Sukarno in 1957-58. His son’s career also benefited from close ties to the United States military, which trained him in the U.S. and provided the forces he commanded special training and access to U.S. military technology.

Prabowo’s military record, early on, demonstrated a disregard for human rights. In 1976, Prabowo was a commander of Group 1 Komando Pasukan Sandhi Yudha and took part in the Indonesian army’s Nanggala Operation in East Timor. He led the mission to track down Nicolau dos Reis Lobato, a founder and vice president of Fretilin, who became the first Prime Minister of East Timor after the declaration of independence in November 1975. Lobato – who had become East Timor’s second President – was shot in the stomach and killed after Prabowo’s company found him on 31 December 1977. The Indonesian military reportedly decapitated the body and sent Lobato’s head to Jakarta.

Prabowo was appointed vice commander of Kopassus’s Detachment 81 in 1983 before receiving commando training at Fort Benning, GA, in the U.S. As commander of Kopassus Group 3, Prabowo attempted to crush the East Timorese independence movement. To terrorize the population, he employed militias trained and directed by Kopassus commanders and hooded “ninja” gangs, who operated at night dressed in black. In East Timor, Prabowo “developed his reputation as the military’s most ruthless field commander. [1]

Prabowo is “somebody who is perhaps the greatest violator of human rights in contemporary times among the Indonesian military.”

While Prabowo’s notorious reputation is based, to a significant extent, on his 1998 anti-democratic and inhumane exploits and his role as a butcher in East Timor, less is known of the key role he played in West Papua. In 1996, Prabowo led the Mapenduma Operation to secure the release of 12 researchers from the World Wildlife Fund’s Lorentz expedition taken hostage by the OPM several months earlier. While five of the researchers were Indonesian, the others were English, Dutch and German. The presence of Europeans among those abducted drew international attention to the obscure struggle for self-determination in West Papua.
Prabowo seized upon the crisis as a means to enhance his reputation domestically and with the international community. He devised a plan whereby the hostages would be released via negotiations between himself and their captors. After lengthy negotiations mediated by the local office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the OPM commander Kelly Kwalik agreed to turn over all hostages in exchange for a military promise of no reprisals and an ICRC pledge to establish a network of health clinics in the remote Mapenduma area. The deal fell through at the last minute.

The Indonesian military’s version of events, quickly accepted by Jakarta-based embassies which were monitoring developments, was that Kwalik had had an inexplicable “change of heart” and had fled the village of Geselema where the transfer of hostages was to take place. There followed a clumsy Indonesian military attack on the village (already evacuated by Kwalik) which killed up to eight civilians. The foreign hostages eventually escaped their captors and reached Indonesian military encampments.

However, in separate interviews with the author of this article, the two most senior ICRC officials provided an entirely different account of events. On the eve of the transfer, the senior ICRC official involved in the negotiations was summoned by Prabowo to his military headquarters in West Papua. There, an enraged Prabowo told the ICRC official that Suharto’s elder daughter, “Tutut,” was planning to fly to West Papua the following day to officiate at the hostage transfer in her capacity as Indonesian Red Crescent chairperson. This, Prabowo told the ICRC official, would rob him of the credit for the hostage rescue. Prabowo pressed the ICRC official to telephone Jakarta and press for Tutut to abort her mission. The ICRC official made the call but learned that Tutut was already enroute. Prabowo, according the two ICRC senior officials who spoke with this author, then moved to scuttle the transfer. This was done by conveying to Kwalik through a source Kwalik trusted that the Indonesian military had been acting in bad faith all along and would immediately target Kwalik and his personnel once the transfer had taken place. This, the ICRC officials claimed, was the reason for Kwalik’s last minute “change of heart.”

The aborted hostage transfer led to a brutal campaign of reprisal attacks by the Indonesian military (largely Kopassus) against highland villages thought to be sympathetic to the OPM.

The aborted hostage transfer led to a brutal campaign of reprisal attacks by the Indonesian military (largely Kopassus) against highland villages thought to be sympathetic to the OPM. The campaign began with the assault on tGeselema using an Indonesian military helicopter disguised to look like the helicopter that ICRC mediators had been using for several months. The ICRC officials told the author that the disguised helicopter and the use of the Red Cross insignia constituted a “perfidy” about which the ICRC could have protested, but did not. The consequence was to so damage the reputation of the ICRC with Papuans as to limit its effectiveness in West Papua for many years. (The Indonesian government subsequently forced the ICRC to close its office in Jayapura, an action unrelated to the Geselema affair.)

The reprisal campaign executed by Prabowo and Kopassus represents only a portion of Prabowo’s long record of involvement in West Papua, but is perhaps among the most important considerations for Papuans as they consider the prospect of a Prabowo presidency.

The December 17 Sydney Morning Herald reports that as 2012 drew to a close at least 22 Papuans associated with the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) had been murdered by Indonesian state security forces. Indonesian military and the so-called “anti-terrorist” Detachment 88 are leading perpetrators of this violence. Three KNPB members are missing and seven are detained. Over 200 Papuans with ties to the organization have been detained but later released, often after brutal treatment. The detain-and-release tactic is part of a broader strategy to intimidate Papuans who speak out in defense of their rights. The KNPB has drawn special attention by security forces because of its growing appeal and its blunt call for Papuan self determination.
J. Ruben Magay, Chairman of Committee A of the Papuan Legislative Council (DPRP), told Papuan media on December 20 that it is incorrect to link the activities of the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) to terrorism. “For quite some time now, some parties have referred to the KNPB as a terrorist organization but I wish to reiterate that KNPB is not a terrorist group. On the contrary they are an organization which promotes democracy in Papua and that is part of the controlling function and the ability to evaluate the performance of the government in the region,” Magay said.

“If it is said that there are terrorists in Papua, I think we should turn our attention to the level of performance of the security apparatus. It would be wrong to address one issue with another issue. There are terrorists that are known to be implicated in explosions. The question is now to what extent is the police able to ascertain them and subsequently how many further threats can be identified. This is what is important,” he said.

It would appear that the national police (POLRI) concur that the KNPB does not constitute a “terrorist threat. Responding to concern that the police would employ anti-terror legislation broadly against peaceful dissidents such as the KNPB. Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian told media in late December that he could “ensure that we have no cases of criminals hiding behind the [Papuan] freedom movement.”

National Police Join Military in More Militant Approach in West Papua

National Police Criminal Investigation Division chief Commander Gen. Sutarman told media on December 18 that the police would employ the Antiterrorism Law No.15/2003 to deal with individuals or groups which he contended were “terrorizing” people in Papua, including those attacking police stations. Sutarman said the decision to use the law has nothing to do with the burgeoning separatist movement.

“We, Papuans, are not terrorists. I regret the decision to even think of using that law to respond to local violence. Even without that law, the police already treat Papuans as terrorists. Can you imagine what they would do with the [anti-terrorism] law?”

Catholic priest John Jonga warned that security personnel would take use of the law as license to use violence against Papuans in the name of counterterrorism. “We, Papuans, are not terrorists. I regret the decision to even think of using that law to respond to local violence. Even without that law, the police already treat Papuans as terrorists. Can you imagine what they would do with the law?”

Poengky Indarti of Imparsial suggested that the plan for the Antiterrorism Law in Papua, could heighten the already tense atmosphere in the province. “The law doesn’t provide a clear definition of terrorism. The police could interpret it subjectively and use it for their own purposes.”

Indonesian Military Shoot Seven Civilians, Killing Four

The Indonesian military shot seven Papuan fisherman near Pulau Papan District in West Papua, killing four, according to a December 28, 2012 report in Bintang Papua (translated by TAPOL). It is unclear why the men were shot and one solider is being questioned by the military police. The bodies of the four were under water for almost a week.

The South Sulawesi Families Association called on the military command to make a statement, but the military have as yet failed to clarify what happened. A spokesman of the association said that they were trying find other victims of the shooting.

Deforestation Continues at Rapid Pace

Latest Indonesian Forestry Ministry figures put the area of remaining primary rainforest in the Indonesian archipelago at less than half of the 130 million hectares of land the ministry currently defines as forest, with most of the remaining pristine rainforests in West Papua. Very little is left in Sumatra and Kalimantan. More than a third of Sumatra’s forests have been destroyed over the last 20 years. Recent expansion in Kalimantan has pushed deforestation rates to rival those recorded in Sumatra. Extractive industries are now targeting the largest remaining tracts of pristine rainforests in Papua.

CHRONICLE

Indonesian Security Forces Have Killed A Peaceful Activist in Custody

The Asian Human Rights Commission on December 21 issued an “urgent appeal” regarding the killing of a pro-independence Papuan activist while in custody and the wounding of a second. Reportedly, members of the infamous Detachment 88 shot both Hubertus Mabel and Natalis Alua, in Milima, Kurulu District on December 16. Hubertus Mabel was killed and Natalis Alua injured. The killing followed the arrest and interrogation at gun point of three other members of West Papua National Committee (Komite Nasional Papua Barat, KNPB) named Simeon Daby, Meki Kogoya and Wene Helakombo on December 15, 2012. Security officials forced the three KNPB members to lure Mabel and Alua to a fatal meeting at which Detachment 88 personnel fired on Mabel and Alua after they had been detained and were lying on the ground. Mabel was also stabbed in the chest.<

Locals Critique MIFEE Project

The Indigenous Peoples Organization of Bian Enim on December 21 released a powerful indictment of the impact of the Indonesian government’s MIFEE (the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate) project. The report highlights the environmental pollution and the failure to involve clan leaders in the planning. The organization demands include and end to the usurpation of private land and compensation for damage already caused.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists Reports Violence and Intimidation of Journalists on The Rise in Papua

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) recorded twelve cases of violence and intimidation against journalists Papua during 2012. A significant increase as compared with 2011, when there were seven cases. The great majority of the cases involved physical abuse and intimidation by Indonesian security forces and other members of the Indonesian administration. In two instances the KNPB was implicated in the intimidation of journalists.

The Australian West Papua Association Sydney has produced a detailed and comprehensive review of human rights developments in West Papua for 2012. The report details incidents of human rights abuses in the past year and in particular looks at the crackdown on the KNPB. The report offers recommendations to the Australian and Indonesian governments, and the leaders of the Micronesia Spearhead Group and Pacific Islands Forum.

The government invited La Rue to visit Indonesia last May during the UN Human Rights Council’s periodic review of human rights in Indonesia. Indonesia came under pressure during that meeting because of its poor record of protecting human rights, notably in West Papua.

The West Papua Advocacy Team strongly urges the Government of Indonesia to lift any restrictions that would prevent the Special Rapporteur from meeting with political prisoners in Jayapura and in Ambon.

The government’s proposed restrictions would preclude La Rue from visiting West Papuan and other political prisoners held in Jayapura and elsewhere. These political prisoners are incarcerated for their peaceful political dissent. For many years the Indonesian government has sought to limit freedom of expression by West Papuans, often by smearing dissenters as separatists and disingenuously claiming that these dissenters are tied to the Papuan armed opposition.

According to reliable sources, the UN Special Rapporteur, who is scheduled to arrive in Indonesia on January 14, plans to postpone his visit unless he is allowed to visit prisoners in both Jayapura and Ambon.

The Indonesian government also wants to prevent La Rue from visiting political prisoners held in Ambon in the Moluccas. Moluccan political prisoners, like Papuan political prisoners, have been incarcerated because of their peaceful dissent. The government proposed would limit him to meetings with officials in Jakarta and with a religious cleric imprisoned in Sampang.

Human rights groups estimate that there are up to 100 political prisoners in Indonesia, mainly Papuans and Moluccans, including 15 Papuans imprisoned under charges of treason.

The West Papua Advocacy Team strongly urges the Government of Indonesia to lift any restrictions that would prevent the Special Rapporteur from meeting with political prisoners in Jayapura and in Ambon. The Indonesian government is accountable to the international community to respect rights of political prisoners under terms of numerous international conventions to which it is party. A visit by the Special Rapporteur is an important means by which to ensure Indonesian compliance with its international obligations.

The West Papua Advocacy team encourages the Special Rapporteur to postpone his visit until such time as he is able to set his own agenda for the visit, including meetings with political prisoners in Jayapura and Ambon.

The West Papua Advocacy Team is a U.S.-based NGO composed of academics, human rights defenders and a retired U.S. diplomat.

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